Critics’ Picks: Feb 13 - Feb 19, 2015

'American Sniper'

Biopics about American war heroes are a Hollywood tradition going all the way back to Gary Cooper starring as the legendary World War I sharpshooter "Sergeant York" and World War II's highly decorated Audie Murphy playing himself in "To Hell and Back." "American Sniper" is squarely in that mold, but because it's directed by Clint Eastwood, something else is going on as well. Taken from the autobiography of the same name, "American Sniper" stars Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle, the Navy SEAL whose 160 confirmed kills over four tours of duty in Iraq made him the deadliest sniper in U.S. military history. (Kenneth Turan) Read more

'Birdman'

In “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance),” Michael Keaton is something of a cross between an aging Icarus and the emperor with no clothes — metaphorical until the tighty-whitey Times Square streak. As a latter-day celluloid superhero come to Broadway's proving ground for a rebirth, the Burning Man histrionics are hysterically on point. Irony lurks in every shadow. Fittingly the film begins with a fiery object streaking toward Manhattan where the highly agitated life of the actor Riggan (Keaton) plays out. The city is the perfect spot for filmmaker Alejandro G. Inarritu to build his pyre. Exactly whose death is being celebrated or mourned — Hollywood? Theater? Society? A single shooting star? — well, that is the question. And oh, the flames that follow. Delicious. (Betsy Sharkey) Read more

'Foxcatcher'

A brooding, brilliant, particularly American horror story of seduction, rejection, betrayal and murder directed by Bennett Miller, starring Steve Carell, Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo, and set in the under-the-radar world of Olympic wrestling. (Kenneth Turan) Read more

'The Imitation Game'

If you care about involving cinema, the career of actor Benedict Cumberbatch, or both, a holiday visit to the smartly entertaining "The Imitation Game" and its look at the life of Alan Turing is inevitable. Turing was a brilliant man whose top-secret work as a code breaker of genius shortened World War II, saved millions of lives and was so central to the Allied victory that it was said the war could not have been won without it. But Turing was also gay at a time when that was a crime in Britain, and he paid an awful price for that after the war. Giving Turing's wartime exploits as well as the entire film, the unexpected pacing of a thriller is the work of Norwegian director Morten Tyldum, whose crackling "Headhunters," adapted from the novel by Jo Nesbo, became the highest-grossing film in that country's history. And as good as Cumberbatch has been, the richness and complexity of Turing's character make this portrayal of an arrogant, difficult, sure-of-himself individual the role of the actor's career. (Kenneth Turan) Read more

'Into the Woods'

With its soaring Sondheim showstoppers, this deliciously arch, deceptively deep, fractured fairy tale has made it to the big screen virtually untouched by Hollywood's big, tall, terrible giants, whose meddling can make a mess. As you'd expect, the woods have been partly repopulated by movie stars — Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt and Johnny Depp among them. Director Rob Marshall pulls out performances that have already drawn awards nominations for Streep and Blunt. The story begs, borrows and steals liberally from many favorite fairy tales: Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, etc. Though not perfect, mostly it is delightful to stroll "Into the Woods" and get lost in this musical, magical world. (Betsy Sharkey) Read more

‘A Most Violent Year’

“A Most Violent Year" is the most welcome kind of throwback. It brings to mind the fierce New York-based productions of Sidney Lumet in particular but also the whole notion of character-driven, the-clock-is-ticking melodramas in general. A vibrant crime story filled to overflowing with crackling situations, taut dialogue and a heightened, even operatic sense of reality, "A Most Violent Year" captures us and doesn't let go. Writer-director J.C. Chandor has now made a trio of gripping films (including "Margin Call" and "All Is Lost") each dealing in its own way with people trying to hold their own as a world they thought they knew closes in and threatens to snuff them out. These pictures all have one foot in classic Hollywood, in the unapologetic movieness of films such as Lumet's "Serpico" and "Prince of the City," but they never feel less than completely modern. (Kenneth Turan) Read more

'Mr. Turner'

Anchored in the rock of Timothy Spall's astonishing Cannes prize-winning performance as British painter J.M.W. Turner, this Mike Leigh film pushes hard against the strictures of conventional narrative and ends up pulling us into its world and capturing us completely. (Kenneth Turan) Read more

'Song of the Sea' at UCLA 'Family Flicks' series

When it comes to films that demand to be experienced on the big screen, Irish director Tomm Moore’s 2014 “Song of the Sea” is high on the list, and this weekend provides an opportunity to see it both bigger than life and for free. Playing admission-free at the Hammer Museum in Westwood’s Billy Wilder Theater at 11 a.m. Sunday as part of the UCLA Film & Television Archive’s “Family Flicks” series, “Song of the Sea” is a wonder to behold. It’s a stunning example of hand-drawn animation, and its story of a brother and sister on an adventure is steeped in Irish myth, folklore and legend. Its gorgeous watercolor backgrounds so adroitly mix the magical and the everyday that to watch it is to be wholly immersed in an enchanted world, with a great soundtrack that employs the Irish band Kila adding to the mood of wonder. Read more

UCLA Film & Television Archive, Billy Wilder Theater, Theatre, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles

'Timbuktu'

Islamic extremists are the butt of the bone-dry joke in the new drama "Timbuktu," with director Abderrahmane Sissako taking a satiric swipe at the armed fundamentalists who've overtaken the northwestern African desert outpost. The film, one of five vying for a foreign-language Oscar, will be at the Laemmle Royal Theatre for another week, and I would encourage you to make time for this smartly courageous film. It uses the common sense and honor of a local cattle herder to plead the case for rational thought in a world gone mad. In contrast, the armed intruders are idiotic, implementing rules that make no sense — a day spent hunting for the source of a song, when music's been banned, a fishmonger facing arrest if she refuses to wear cloth gloves. But the enforcers ignore the dictates that inconvenience them — the ban on smoking, for one. For all of "Timbuktu's" the-emperor-has-no-clothes attitude, the undercurrent remains serious. Sissako never discounts the cost of a repressive regime, but he also exposes it for what it is — absurd. (Betsy Sharkey) (In Arabic, Bambara, French, English, Songhay and Tamasheq, with English subtitles) Read more

'Two Days, One Night'

It's strange to think of this new drama from Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne as a thriller, but that's exactly what they've created. The clock is ticking on a factory worker (Marion Cotillard) who has two days and one night to try to persuade co-workers to give up a precious bonus so that she can return to a job eliminated while she was on medical leave. For all the excellent work Cotillard has done, this performance stands among her best. She absorbs a young wife and mother's indecision, insecurity, depression and weariness down to the bone. (Betsy Sharkey) (In French with English subtitles.) Read more

'Whiplash'

With an amazing Miles Teller on drums and a terrifying J.K. Simmons setting the tempo, "Whiplash" is a movie you feel as much as you see, and what you see is both exquisite and excruciating. Writer-director Damien Chazelle draws on his nightmare memories of high school, an intense time when the aspiring jazz drummer was driven to excel by a merciless teacher who favored verbal torture and humiliation to mold young minds. The question Chazelle poses is whether psychological pain is the price of greatness. These sorts of stand-offs and power games have given us some truly great films — Duvall in "The Great Santini," De Niro in "This Boy's Life" come to mind. Now "Whiplash" will too. (Betsy Sharkey) Read more

Reese Witherspoon in 'Wild'

To put it bluntly, it took Cheryl Strayed wandering in the woods to get Reese Witherspoon back on track. In “Wild,” based on Strayed’s bestselling memoir of her punishing 1,100-mile solo hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, the actress discovers her deeper self much like the character she played. Witherspoon — worn down and unwashed — lets herself go, taking on the weight of a backpack dubbed “the monster,” along with all the pain and the troubles of Cheryl’s life, from indiscriminate sex to a heroin habit. As her character reclaims herself one step at a time along the trail, the actress finds a new level of emotions and a new comfort with showing raw vulnerability. In “Wild” she willingly exposes both her scarred body and soul. The portrait of a young woman coming to terms with life’s challenges is a far cry from the actress’ perky, put-together law student of “Legally Blonde.” Though 2001’s “Blonde” put her on the map, it is navigating tougher terrain like she found in “Wild” that will keep her there. Her Screen Actors Guild nomination certainly suggests she is on the right path. (Betsy Sharkey) Read more

'Mozart in the Jungle'

I finally had time to binge-watch Amazon's adaptation of the Blair Tindall book that had the classical-music world buzzing a decade ago. (Hey, it's classical music; these things take time.) I enjoyed every minute, and not just because of Bernadette Peters, though I will watch anything she is in, ever. Revolving around a comely young oboist ... frankly, they had me at "oboist" because how many times has a television show revolved around an oboist? I'll tell you how many: Zero. Revolving around a comely young oboist named Hailey (Lola Kirke, sister to "Girls'" Jemima Kirke if that means anything beyond the fact that they definitely look like sisters and are almost always interesting on camera), "Mozart in the Jungle" is, at its essence, a workplace comedy. Except in this case the workplace is the New York Philharmonic, which lends the series the kind of behind-the-scenes frisson that fuels reality programs like "Ice Road Truckers" only with far more glamorous interiors. (Mary McNamara) (Amazon Prime, anytime) Read more

Keep watching 'Gotham'

Never miss it, don't know why anyone would. The slightly ironic noir prequel to the Batman legend becomes more and more its own animal as Detective Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) struggles to put his very troubled city on the path to virtue without the aid of the caped crusader (who is still being home-schooled by the intrepid Alfred (Sean Pertwee), who never gets as much screen time as one would want.) Fantastic without being supernatural, "Gotham" has sustained its twisted but still quite recognizable vision of the City Corrupt. The sins—greed, larceny, disregard for human life—are universal, the villains tricked out in comic book tradition. Robin Lord Tayler's emerging Penguin is a joy to watch, as is Cory Michael Smith's Mr. Nygma soon to be Riddler, and rumor has it that Monday's episode introduces the Joker. But the story belongs to Gordon, and his less ambitious partner, Harvey (Donal Logue), clearing a path through a twisted forest of thorns one crazy case at a time.(Mary McNamara) (Fox, Mondays) Read more

'Sons of the Prophet'

Stephen Karam's acclaimed 2011 comedy-drama, about two gay Lebanese-American brothers in Pennsylvania dealing with spiritual, economic and medical challenges in the wake of their father's death, was a Pulitzer finalist, and it's easy to see why. By couching the unfolding series of calamities and reversals in farcical terms that verge on absurdist at times, author Karam ensures that the deeper issues at play sneak into our brainpans, realized to the hilt by director Michael Matthews, a fine design team and a wonderful ensemble. Ends Sunday, May 17. Read more

The Blank's 2nd Stage Theatre, 6500 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood

'Tristan & Yseult'

The delightful British theater troupe Kneehigh keeps finding ways of demonstrating that whimsicality on stage is perfectly compatible with emotional grace. Following the company's success with "Brief Encounter" is this mythic romantic tale that famously enraptured Wagner. Blending quirky humor with hypnotic lyricism, the production, directed and adapted by Emma Rice, is a present for theatergoers who are at once too shrewd not to laugh at love and too wise to treat it as a joke. (Charles McNulty) (Ends Sunday, Feb. 22) Read more

South Coast Repertory, Segerstrom Stage, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

'Billy Elliot: The Musical'

Although this surefire production of Elton John and Lee Hall's Tony-winning adaptation of the beloved Stephen Daldry film doesn't entirely disguise certain pro-forma aspects in the property, audiences are unlikely to let that prohibit their absolute enjoyment. Director Brian Kite oversees a sleeker, sparer physical realization than London and New York witnessed, which actually serves the storytelling beautifully, and the fervent cast ranges from wholly proficient to truly inspired, led by the astonishing Mitchell Tobin, whose dance-besotted title character reveals a remarkable young talent destined for great things ahead. (David C. Nichols) (Ends Sunday, Feb. 22) Read more

The Alex Theatre, 216 North Brand Blvd., Glendale

'Reborning'

Zayd Dohrn's creepy, funny, emotionally ravaging comedy-drama concerns a young craftswoman of "reborn" babies whose latest customer wants nothing less than to re-create her own dead infant in plastic. In director Simon Levy's meticulously well-realized production, Joanna Strapp stands out as the young dollmaker, gruesomely abandoned in infancy, whose latest "custom order" brings her to the brink of madness. (F. Kathleen Foley) (Ends Sunday, March 15) Read more

Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave., Hollywood.

'Smoke and Mirrors'

As actor and Magic Castle illusionist Albie Selznick’s superb theatrical magic show explores the connections between his life and art, perhaps his greatest feat is making any trace of boredom completely disappear. (Philip Brandes) (Ends Sunday, March 15) Read more

Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West Los Angeles

Album: 'Blackheart'

Best known as an original member of Danity Kane, R&B singer Dawn Richard left the group last year (again) after a public kerfuffle revealed deep divisions among the crew. No disrespect to the others, but Richard is thriving without them. Over the last few years she's issued a series of works that hinted at a wildly visionary approach to soul sonics, and she's gone even further on "Blackheart." A collaboration with the Los Angeles producer Noisecastle III, Richards' second studio album is thick with synth-based polyrhythms and layers of Richard's fine voice. When delivered straight, it's solid and pitch perfect. More often, though, she and Noisecastle run her words through strange filters, electronically manipulating it to move from male bass to female soprano and beyond. She merges her words with Vocoders like she's rolling onto Kraftwerk's "Autobahn," hums with Giorgio Moroder-like synth throbs. The result is magnetic future funk, rife with Roland 909 tones, British drum and bass accents and much left-field surprise. (Randall Roberts) Read more

Album: 'Vulnicura'

In the opening measures of Björk's new album, "Vulnicura," the Icelandic artist offers a direct statement of purpose, one involving personal upheaval she describes as "a juxtapositioning fate." Mentioning "moments of clarity as so rare, I better document this," Björk directs her gaze in that first song, "Stonemilker," on the dissolution of a relationship. As she does so, what can be described only as Björkian strings and beats swirl around her. These drifting arrangements soar through tracks like birds spinning circles in prairie skies, even as the experimental pop singer, 49, lyrically crawls through the brush below in utter confusion. At times devastated, others baffled, still others strong and determined, the artist on "Vulnicura" offers nine songs, six of which move in chronological order through that juxtapositional end and beyond. (Randall Roberts) Read more

Album: 'Black Messiah'

In a brief foreword in the liner notes for "Black Messiah," the great new album from the soul artist known simply as D'Angelo, the creator declares his intentions with a dose of humility. "'Black Messiah' is a hell of a name for an album," he writes, explaining that the title of his first long-player in 14 years, and only his third in 19 years, might be misconstrued as being about religion or paint the artist as some sort of egomaniac. But, writes D'Angelo, to him the title is "about the world. It's about an idea we can all aspire to. We should all aspire to be a Black Messiah. It's about people rising up in Ferguson and in Egypt and in Occupy Wall Street and every place where a community has had enough and decides to make change happen." (Randall Roberts) Read more

Album: 'The Pinkprint'

Those who have followed Nicki Minaj's often-thrilling ascent to hip-hop superstardom have been hoping for another straight-up rap album for years. After annihilating virtually all takers on mixtapes and guest verses starting in 2007, the 32-year-old began gunning for the pop charts, pouring forth two albums, "Pink Friday" (2010) and "Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded" (2012). Both often paired her charismatic wit and style with of-the-moment dance floor bangers and big-umbrella commercial sounds, along with a teasing dose of hard-edged hip-hop. She's earned those hits, to the chagrin of some of her most devoted defenders — those who understand that when Minaj flips that switch and devotes herself to the art of the well-crafted hip-hop verse, uninterrupted electricity flows through her. When she's on, her phrasing, her myriad personas, her playfully percussive vocal flow and the overall presentation combine to create as striking a presence as anyone who's ever rhymed along to beats. "The Pinkprint," released Monday, won't fully placate the hard-core rap heads, but it's got the bangs and the thrills many of us have hoped for, even if it's a slow build kind of power and slacks at times. (Randall Roberts) Read more

Run the Jewels

Run the Jewels is the team of two indie titans, El-P and Killer Mike, who have upended convention by remaining idealistically true, artistically adventurous and creatively emboldened well into their second decade as rapper-producers. The pair's second album, released as a free download, proves it 11 times over. As smart as it is sonically imaginative and unpredictable, "Run the Jewels 2" proves the team's debut was less a fluke than a portent. Headphone rap of the highest order, tracks on this sequel hum and groove, laced with texture and hidden sonic accents. Psychedelic jams — but not in the hippie sense — including "Close Your Eyes (And Count to …)" and "Lie, Cheat, Steal" are both trippy and menacing, the product of two rappers whose understanding of cadence, phrasing and language as syllabic percussion is often awe-inspiring. (Randall Roberts) Read more

CD Set: 'The Basement Tapes Complete'

It's the most famous room in the annals of pop music, its history equal parts legend and truth. In the decades since its use as a rehearsal space, this subterranean refuge has become known as the birthplace of some of America's most examined (non-Paris-Hilton-sex, non-Watergate) tapes. The Basement Tapes. Many of a certain generation know the basics: In and around Woodstock, N.Y., Bob Dylan and his then-backing band, the Hawks, converged to create stripped-down, defiantly un-psychedelic artistic magic. As the story goes, while recuperating from a motorcycle crash and starting his life as a husband and father of two, Dylan and his compadres, who soon rechristened themselves the Band, crafted a mysterious vessel on more than 40 reels of tape that have since become sacred texts of sorts. The most famous of these works are well known: "This Wheel's on Fire," "I Shall Be Released," "Tears of Rage," "Sign on the Cross," "I'm Not There," "Lo and Behold." Many were traded on the underground circuit through the decades: as whispers on poorly mastered bootleg albums starting with the "Great White Wonder" from 1969, on hissy cassettes, duped CDs and voluminous megabytes. But until this week, the full set has never been officially issued. Nearly 50 years after Band keyboardist Garth Hudson started setting up recording gear, Columbia/Legacy's new six-CD set "The Basement Tapes Complete: The Bootleg Series Vol. 11" gathers everything the team recorded from February through December 1967, more than 100 songs or fragments. A two-CD volume collects highlights. (Randall Roberts) Read more

Album: 'Too Bright'

Wearing a loose-knotted black sweater that revealed his carved torso beneath, the pianist, singer and songwriter known as Perfume Genius sat before a whisper-quiet sold-out crowd at the Roxy in West Hollywood and tried to explain the raw, full-throated wail he'd just unleashed. Dubbing it his "general horror movie scream," the artist born Mike Hadreas had just poured forth during "Grid," a highlight from his new album, "Too Bright," and devastating as performed live in a room with so much history. It was a harrowing cry amid a remarkable set, delivered from the thin membrane that separates singing and raging, a place expertly inhabited by artists including Jeff Buckley and his father, Tim, Fiona Apple and the Cocteau Twins' Elizabeth Fraser. A realm that straddles an egoless display of creative emotion and uncontrollable onstage breakdown. (Randall Roberts) Read more

John Cage CDs

Classical music has a habit of burning out on birthdays. Two years ago, John Cage's music was everywhere, what with Los Angeles and the world celebrating the centennial of his birth on Sept. 5 at Good Samaritan Hospital in downtown L.A. The party lingered. Last September, Gustavo Dudamel opened the Los Angeles Philharmonic season with a performance of Cage's famous so-called silent piece, "4'33"." This year, though, the pickings are slim for Cage's 102nd birthday. But three excellent ongoing Cage CD series have new releases to frost the Cage birthday cake. (Mark Swed) Read more

Album: 'Manipulator' Ty Segall

By the time that Ty Segall hit age 26, he had already recorded and released six solo albums, appeared or collaborated on a dozen or so other albums of frantic guitar rock, issued 20 singles or extended-plays through various record labels, appeared on dozens of compilations and composed a few hundred songs. In that burst of inspiration, the Laguna Beach-born guitarist, singer, surfer, skater and songwriter toured nonstop, gigging hundreds of shows across the country. He produced similarly minded bands, played punk and indie festivals and tore through many wickedly searing guitar solos. The Memphis garage rock label Goner had already released the first Segall singles collection by the time he was 24. His titles for these records included "Sleeper," "Gemini," "Horn the Unicorn," "Lemons," "Melted," "Reverse Shark Attack," "Twins" and "Goodbye Bread." Each recorded with immediacy and on the cheap, they captured the uncontainable energy of a muse so busy both consuming and producing music that few but the most devoted could keep up. Before starting work on his new album, "Manipulator," Segall (pronounced like the bird) had accumulated a bulldozer's worth of distorted rock 'n' roll riffs, amassing ideas while sweating the proverbial 10,000 hours required of an expert craftsman. (Randall Roberts) Read more

Album: 'The Imagined Savior Is Far Easier to Paint'

When trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire released his Blue Note debut three years ago, “When the Heart Emerges Glistening,” it felt as if his talents could take him anywhere. So it makes sense that in crafting his follow-up, Akinmusire nearly goes everywhere. Engrossing, elusive and packed to its literal limits with ideas at 79 minutes, “The Imagined Savior Is Far Easier to Paint” beautifully takes Akinmusire’s distinctive tone to new realms, including slow-burning orchestral swells and convention-defying vocal collaborations that attempt to translate his vision into words. (Chris Barton) Read more

Album: 'Blank Project'

"Good things come to those who wait," Neneh Cherry sings over stormy electronics and a skittering rhythm on her first solo album in 16 years. If there's a lingering take-away from "Blank Project," that's it. Cherry, whose breakout hit "Buffalo Stance" was practically inescapable in the late '80s, left music for years before reemerging with "The Cherry Thing" in 2012. A brash stab of skronky jazz-punk that paired Cherry's soulful vocals with a blustery Scandinavian saxophone trio, the record was one of the year's best. Here Cherry proves that comeback was no fluke. (Chris Barton) Read more

Album: 'Blue Film'

Lo-Fang is the pseudonym of Matthew Hemerlein, a singer and pop composer who wrote, recorded and played all the instruments on this debut. Drawing on digital R&B, modern pop, "Kid A"-era Radiohead and electronic music, he presents three- and four-minute song bursts that are tightly structured but labyrinthine in detail. "When We're Fine" floats on a digital loop, a tiny-but-mighty rhythm, backward-spinning bleeps and bloops and a catchy chorus. An early contender for debut of the year, "Blue Film" comes out Feb. 25. Lo-Fang goes on tour with his most famous fan, Lorde, this spring. Highly recommended. (Randall Roberts) Read more

Pistola

If you've traveled much in Italy, you probably have an idea of what an Italian steak meal might be like: a small antipasto or two, an unchallenging pasta and then a honking piece of meat, charred salty black in the fireplace but warm and bloody within, portioned out among everybody at the table. If there is a sauce, it is a few drops of harsh, green olive oil. If there is a side dish, it is a handful of potatoes or some beans. You will drink cheap, rough wine. You will still spend more than you expect, but you will be unreasonably happy. Pistola, the new restaurant from Gusto's Vic Casanova, is another kind of Italian steakhouse, halfway between a pasta house and a luxury steakhouse like Boa or Mastro's. Read more

Pistola, 8022 W. 3rd St., Los Angeles

Chinatown

The arts district, flanking the Los Angeles River downtown, is approaching peak restaurant density. We're seeing new concentrations of restaurants in Highland Park, Manhattan Beach, Silver Lake, Venice and Boyle Heights that are strong enough to excite anti-gentrification activists who are frightened that craft beer and avocado toast might attract the wrong sort of neighbors. But if you had to choose the next neighborhood to attract long lines, innovative kitchens and blurbs in national magazines, you would do well to put your money on Chinatown. If you grew up in Los Angeles, your fondest memories of Chinatown may involve live crabs at Mon Kee, pan-fried dumplings at Mandarin Deli or punk-rock shows at the Hong Kong Cafe; dim sum at Miriwa, char-edged chow fun at Home Cafe, or 2 a.m. oyster-pork hot pots at Happy Valley — institutions now as lost to history as the memory that the district was once an Italian neighborhood. But today's Chinatown, sparked into life by cheap rents and the gallery boom, is in the process of becoming an entirely new place. Read more

Marugame Monzo

Perhaps you are in Little Tokyo, as one often is, and you are in the mood for noodles, and you fear that you may perish from hunger, pure hunger, if you are forced to endure the wait at either Daikokuya or Shin-Sen-Gumi. So you settle in at Marugame Monzo, where the line is only half as long, and you console yourself with what is probably the best udon in Los Angeles. Really, even if you’d never heard of udon, you could probably guess that this was the place to get it because 1) literally everybody else in the restaurant has a bowl of it on his or her table, and 2) in the back of the restaurant, clearly visible in an enclosed glass booth, a highly trained man is whomping away at huge gobs of dough with what looks like an industrial paper cutter. Read more

Marugame Monzo, 329 E. First St., Little Tokyo, Los Angeles

Ledlow

The old Pete's was a place you stopped into for a plate of blue cheese fries after the bars closed. As rejiggered by Josef Centeno, the restaurant, renamed Ledlow, is a neighborhood restaurant for a different kind of neighborhood, a place where the chalkboard menu listed things like beef tongue salad and caramelized sunchoke remoulade, the crudités come straight from the farmers market, and both the chicken and the shrimp salad come straight from the pages of James Beard. Centeno, a master of genre cooking, is making a bold statement about serious American cuisine. Read more

Ledlow, 400 S. Main St., Los Angeles.

Porridge and Puffs

We all have particular ideas of what a porridge restaurant might look like, whether a Hong Kong-style congee shop like Delicious Corner in Monterey Park or a Taiwanese porridge hall like Lu's Garden in San Gabriel, Atlacatl and its list of Salvadoran atoles, the Koreatown pumpkin-porridge specialist Bon Juk or Veronica's Kitchen in Inglewood, with its Nigerian fufu menu. I consider myself open-minded when it comes to porridge. But I never expected a spot like Porridge and Puffs, the semi-elegant restaurant that takes over the lunch counter Field Trip a few nights a week. The porridge is prepared with the obsessive care that the hairy-chested kitchens devote to charcuterie and is served in flights as if rare vintages of Montrachet. It is easy to laugh at the idea of a porridge-intensive restaurant until you taste a spoonful of the rice porridge with pickles and jam: an arrangement of herbs, fermented mustard greens and a spoonful of a sharp, lemongrass-infused chile condiment as dazzling in its complexity as anything coming out of the most famous kitchens in town. Read more

Porridge and Puffs, 1555 Vine St., No. 119, Hollywood

Scopa Italian Roots

Scopa is a second collaboration between Antonia Lofaso, also chef of Black Market Liquor Bar in Studio City, and the team of Steve Livigni and Pablo Moix, who have been involved with half of the stylish bars in Los Angeles, including Black Market, La Descarga, Pour Vous and Harvard & Stone. Lofaso, a protégée of Spago's Lee Hefter, is on television a lot — she was a star of "Top Chef's" fourth season and is on "Cutthroat Kitchen." She also wrote the 2012 "Busy Mom's Cookbook," which is actually kind of good to have around if you need an easy recipe for braised brisket or blueberry muffins. In the book she confesses that her restaurant jobs have also included stints waiting tables at Chin Chin and Puff Daddy's soul food restaurant Justine's. Her heritage is Italian American, but her experience is fairly eclectic. A traditional Italian American meal? Almost, but not quite. Read more

Scopa Italian Roots, 2905 W. Washington Blvd., Venice

Barrel & Ashes

Los Angeles, in the last several years, has become something of a paradise for what I've taken to calling Chefs Without Portfolio, highly skilled young cooks, killing time between major projects, who have done things like reinvent gastropubs, run oversubscribed pop-ups, or open taquerias that honor the precepts of modernist cuisine. CWPs — Ludo Lefebvre, Walter Manzke and Jeremy Fox were among their ranks — are presumably OK with underachieving, because they know that stardom waits in the wings. Timothy Hollingsworth is among the most prominent CWP bouncing around Los Angeles at the moment. He was not so long ago chef de cuisine at the French Laundry, and the designated U.S. competitor in the Bocuse d'Or culinary championships. This spring, he will be chef of the restaurant in the upcoming Broad Museum. He is a highbrow in the kitchen, legendary for his French technique. So although he was born in Texas, and his name sounds as if it could belong to a white-hat country music singer, the last place you might expect to find him is running a barbecue pit in the San Fernando Valley. But there he is, behind the stoves at the new Barrel & Ashes in Studio City, supervising long-smoked brisket, spareribs and pulled pork, all of it properly free range or certified Angus beef. Read more

11801 Ventura Blvd. Studio City

Saint Martha

Your opinion of Saint Martha, a cramped new bistro in a Koreatown mini-mall, will probably correlate pretty closely with your view on steak and oyster tartare, the default signature dish. The tartare appears on the short menu under the heading Rawesome. It comes to the table flanked by two scorching-hot empanadas stuffed with molten bone marrow. A pair of sauces, tart sabayons, are presented one inside the other and look like a fried egg. And while you may have tasted the combination of raw meat and raw seafood before — a raw beef-octopus dish is popular in the South Korean city of Gwangju — Saint Martha's surf 'n' turf is a little odd, the bits of oyster discernible mostly as a briny note almost lost among the bloody tang of the chopped steak and the crunch of minced pickles. The scarlet mound is almost a self-saucing mechanism, designed to maximize umami. I think I like it, but I change my mind every time I taste it. The dish is a shotgun marriage of opposites. Read more

Saint Martha, 740 S. Western Ave., Los Angeles

Santa Rita, Jalisco

This taco truck, parked permanently deep in the Eastside, is famous for pescuezos, delicious deep-fried chicken necks The skin is pushed up the shaft of the neck before frying, which gives the effect of a tanned, meaty cylinder surmounted by an Elizabethan collar of pure crunch; hidden bits of chewy meat and a corona of pure, fatty pleasure. Because the truck has colonized a largish brick-and-mortar taqueria, there are plenty of tables to sit around, and you can always find parking. If pescuezos aren't your thing, the pork al pastor, sliced from its spit to order is decent. But really, you should try the necks. Tear off a bit of meat, and wrap it in a warm tortilla with a splash of peppery tomato salsa. At $2.25 for an order of four necks, it's about the cheapest happiness in town. And on weekends, Santa Rita is open until 3 a.m. Read more

Santa Rita, Jalisco,3900 E. First St., East Los Angeles

Commissary

Anybody can make a pork chop taste good. It takes dedication to cook a memorable carrot. Roy Choi is the Los Angeles chef who became famous selling Korean tacos from his Kogi truck. His takes on student rice bowls, Hawaiian beach food and Jamaican party eats at Chego, A-Frame and Sunny Spot are both intelligent and easy to eat. If he listened to venture capitalists, there would probably be Kogi stands in half the food courts in America. But as steeped as he is in L.A.'s working-class cuisine, Choi is part of world chef culture now — jetting off to conferences in New York, Copenhagen and Melbourne, where his ideas on food and community are taken seriously. He has a bestselling memoir and a show on CNN. He plans to collaborate on a chain of healthy fast-food restaurants with Patterson, who is perhaps the most cerebral chef working in the U.S. When Choi hinted that Commissary, his new restaurant in the Line Hotel in Koreatown, would be vegetable-focused, it made sense. Highbrow chefs concentrate on vegetables now. It is a given. Read more

Commissary, Line Hotel, 3515 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles

Alimento

Alimento, a new Italian restaurant from Zach Pollack, has, in just a few months, established itself as one of the better small Italian restaurants in Los Angeles, a place so fantastically popular that the valet station occasionally backs up Silver Lake Boulevard and even TV stars content themselves with sitting at the bar. You may know Pollack from Sotto, where he has been cooking Southern Italian food with Steve Samson for the last few years, or from South Coast Plaza's Pizzeria Ortica before that. This is an era of solo acts, young chefs breaking away from the strictures imposed by serial restaurateurs and their pocketbooks, and Silver Lake may be an appropriate place for chefs as well as musicians to go indie. And Pollack is turning things upside down. Read more

Alimento, 1710 Silver Lake Blvd., Silver Lake

Petit Trois

When you are evaluating a sushi bar, you can tell a lot by looking at the tamago, the sweetened omelet often served as a last course. To casual customers, it may be a throwaway, but the consistency and texture reveal a lot about a chef's concentration and skill. In Hong Kong-style restaurants, I was surprised to learn last year, chefs may judge one another on the excellence of their sweet and sour pork, a plebeian dish that relies on superb technique. And in a new bistro, you can probably discover everything you want to know about a chef by his escargot, a dish that in the wrong restaurant can resemble nothing so much as chunks of black rubber in scented grease. Great escargot is earthy, a little tender, adding a distinct hit of umami to the garlic and herbs. In Los Angeles, you can get truly wonderful escargot at Church & State and at République. But there may be no better plate of escargot in town than at the new Petit Trois: six fat snails arranged on a custom metal plate, shells brimming with garlic, minced parsley and melted butter. Read more

Petit Trois, 718 N. Highland Ave., Los Angeles

Sadie Benning: 'Fuzzy Math'

Ambiguity is the heart and soul of Benning's exhibition. The N.Y. artist's Los Angeles debut fills four spacious galleries with a provocative combination of luxurious sensuality and adequate craftsmanship (David Pagel) (Through Feb. 14) Read more

Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, 6006 Washington Blvd., Culver City

'Floral Journey: Native North American Beadwork'

Unless one is Native American, getting a grasp of complex Native American spiritual cosmologies is not easy. And that distinction, which might be called a quality of profound otherness, is in essence what drives a fascinating show recently opened at the Autry National Center of the American West in Griffith Park. It's a story of survival, of a will to endure in the face of crushing opposition. And it is a story told through beads. (Christopher Knight) (Through April 26) Read more

Autry National Center of the American West, 700 Western Heritage Way, Los Angeles

'Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi'

They don't make paintings like "Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi" anymore. The slow, ruminative medium of oil paint on canvas has pretty much had it as the sharpest system for the memorable delivery of effective, politically minded propaganda. Painting has long since been replaced by the relentless, 24/7 information cycle repeated nonstop on cable television and the Internet. Painter Eugène Delacroix, born in a small Parisian suburb in 1798, was a principal artistic pivot on which the total transformation began. It's as if the pressures of unstoppable change pushed him to raise the propaganda bar to extravagant painterly heights. "Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi," painted in 1826, was among his first bravura masterpieces in the genre. The allegorical painting is on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts in Bordeaux, France, for a small but incisive exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. (Through Feb. 15) Read more

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles

Group Show: 'Image Search'

This is a smart little show that turns the work search engines do — with the touch of a key — into an existential question about the relationship between appearances and reality and the roles people play in sorting fact from fiction, truth from lies (David Pagel) (Ends Sat., Feb. 28) Read more

Josef Koudelka retrospective

Given subjects that repeatedly focus on human barbarism, whether between people or by people against the natural environment, you won't find yourself smiling much in the large Josef Koudelka retrospective at the J. Paul Getty Museum. But again and again, you won't be able to avert your eyes. Bleak and powerful, the best images by the Czech-born French photographer merge incisive reportage with a keen sense of graphic design. A great Koudelka photograph creates an almost subliminal perspective, which burrows into your slowly awakening consciousness. (Christoper Knight) (Ends Sunday, March 22) Read more

J. Paul Getty Museum, 2000 Getty Center Drive, Brentwood

Meghan Smythe: A Swollen Light Behind the Eye

Meghan Smythe harnesses to its fullest clay's metaphoric power to invoke the very stuff of life. The raw force of being and becoming, making as well as unmaking courses through these sculptures. Their energy oscillates wildly between desperate and spent (Leah Ollman) (Through Feb. 14) Read more

Mark Moore Gallery, 5790 Washington Blvd., Culver City

Rembrandt at the Getty

When is a portrait not a portrait? (Or, to be more precise, not exactly a portrait?) The answer: When it's a tronie, the theatrical 17th century Dutch invention in which artists weren't after a specific person's likeness but, instead, examined facial expressions as characteristic types of human emotion. Rembrandt van Rijn was good at it. When he was young and starting out, he looked into a mirror and used his own face to produce a tronie of laughter — and the result is now on view in the Getty's permanent collection galleries as the museum's newest acquisition. (Christopher Knight) Read more

The Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles

'Guys Like Me'

“There are no second acts,” Dominique Fabre writes in his new novel “Guys Like Me” (New Vessel Press: 144 pp., $15.99 paper). It’s a nod to Fitzgerald, sure, but it is also an existential statement, made by an unnamed Parisian who, as he drifts through his 50s, finds himself increasingly unmoored. Divorced, the father of an adult son, he works in an office, although we never find out much about what he does. Rather, the novel revolves around small interactions, particularly with two old friends and with a woman he meets on a dating site. “Sometimes,” he tells us, “you’re so alone you think you’re talking aloud even when you haven’t said a word.” Fabre is a genius of these nuanced, interior moments; his 2008 novel, “The Waitress Was New,” offered a similar glimpse of quiet lives. Read more

'John Lennon: The Collected Artwork'

I’ve long had a thing for John Lennon’s drawings: the loopy sketches (loose, impressionistic) he made throughout his life. Quick takes, they are akin to diary entries or visual haiku. One hangs on my living room wall, a 1969 portrait of John and Yoko, beneath a banner declaring “Peace.” It’s a prized possession, familiar and yet at the same time vivid, a reminder that the moment is all we really have. That image appears, as it should, in “John Lennon: The Collected Artwork” (Insight Editions: 204 pp., $50), edited by Scott Gutterman, which claims to be a comprehensive collection of Lennon’s visual work. I don’t know about that, but the 200 or so pieces here span his life as a creative figure, from childhood images (recognizable from the cover of his 1974 album “Walls and Bridges”) to those created just before he died. Read more

'How to Be Both'

Ali Smith's sixth novel, "How to Be Both," is a book of doubles, featuring twin narratives paired back to back and published in separate editions. In one, the first part evokes the 15th century Italian painter Francesco del Cossa and the second the contemporary saga of a British teenager named Georgia; in the other, these two stories are reversed. That this is a gimmick goes without saying, and yet it is a gimmick that resonates. "[T]he first thing we see," Smith writes late (or early) in the novel, "S and most times the only thing we see, is the one on the surface. So does that mean it comes first after all? And does that mean the other picture, if we don't know about it, may as well not exist?" What she's describing is the art of the fresco, which was Del Cossa's, and involves a certain tension between what are called "underdrawings" — think of them as basic sketches — and the finished work. The same could be said about this book. Read more

Patrick Modiano

When Patrick Modiano won the Nobel Prize for literature in October, a lot of readers (myself included) were taken by surprise. Until now, he has been relatively unknown in the U.S., although he is a bestseller in his native France and winner of the Prix Goncourt who has published steadily since his first novel, "La Place de l'Étoile," appeared in 1968, and co-wrote the screenplay for Louis Malle's 1974 movie "Lacombe Lucien." Like that film, much of Modiano's fiction has roots in the paradoxes of the Vichy era, which remains, for him, a matter of both personal and collective history. Read more

'Family Furnishings: Selected Stories'

The most astonishing aspect of Alice Munro's "Family Furnishings: Selected Stories, 1995-2014" may be its chronology. The two dozen efforts here come from late in her career, after she had established herself as (perhaps) the preeminent short-fiction writer of her time. Munro's first book came out in 1968; she had already received pretty much every award possible before winning the Nobel Prize in literature in 2013. Yet rather than fall into any sort of expected pattern, she has, as Jane Smiley notes in her introduction to this deep and constantly surprising collection, "in the last six volumes, written since 1996 ... gotten more experimental rather than less." This is especially true of the "not quite stories" Munro has written over the past decade, pastiches the author calls "autobiographical in feeling, though not, sometimes, entirely so in fact." Three of them ("Working for a Living," "Home" and "Dear Life") appear in "Family Furnishings," and they bring a certain resonance to the enterprise. Why? Because they remind us that fiction, at its most profound and moving, is about human endurance, which makes it very much a reflection of reality. Read more

'The Laughing Monsters'

Denis Johnson tends to let his work speak for itself. Since the publication of his debut novel, "Angels," in 1983 he's written some of the most essential books in contemporary American literature, but he doesn't often talk about them. "My general policy," he tells me in an email, "is to duck every such opportunity to make a fool of myself." And yet to mark the publication of his 10th novel, "The Laughing Monsters" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux: 228 pp., $25), Johnson has agreed to what he calls "an electronic back-and-forth" an email correspondence about the new novel, a political thriller set in Sierra Leone, Uganda and the Congo (a region he has covered as a journalist for Harper's, among other publications), writing in general and the breadth of his career. Read more

'This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate'

Naomi Klein has made a career critiquing the effects of global capital and consumerism. Her 2000 book "No Logo" looked at the exploitation of workers by large multinationals, including Nike; her follow-up, "The Shock Doctrine" (2007), examined the ways in which corporations benefit from disasters, wars and other upheavals, often with the assistance of policy initiatives. These books have led to the Canadian-born Klein being called "the most visible and influential figure on the American left." For Klein, the tensions between individual freedom, individual rights and the primacy of the political-corporate complex exist in something of a crisis state. Nowhere is this more true than when it comes to climate change, the subject of her new book, "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate," which argues, in the starkest terms imaginable, that we as a culture have reached a tipping point. Read more

'Gabriel'

First, a few facts: Edward Hirsch's son, Gabriel, died on Aug. 27, 2011, at age 22. Hurricane Irene was making landfall in New York. The previous evening, he went to a party in New Jersey, where he took GHB (known in the vernacular as Grievous Bodily Harm). He had a seizure and went into cardiac arrest. It took Hirsch and his ex-wife four days to find out what had happened to their son. That is the back story, the bare-bones context for Hirsch's book-length poem "Gabriel," which is as raw, as relentless in its inconsolability, as anything I've read. But the real point here is that facts, that context, offer no comfort. What we most want — for things to work out differently — is what we cannot have. "I wish I could believe in the otherworld," Hirsch writes. "I wish I could believe in a place / Of reunions outside of memory." Read more

'Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage'

Haruki Murakami's "Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage" begins with a simple premise: A Tokyo railroad engineer, the Tsukuru Tazaki of the novel's title, finds himself borne back ceaselessly to the summer of his sophomore year in college, when, for no reason he can determine, he was cut off by his close-knit group of high school friends. The betrayal sent Tsukuru into a spiral. "It was as if," Murakami writes, "he were sleepwalking through life, as if he had already died but not yet noticed it." It's a condition that lingers into adulthood. There is a rawness, a vulnerability, to this situation, a sense that the surface of the world is thin. This is true even after Tsukuru reaches back across the years to make contact with his former friends. How do we connect, or reconnect, Murakami wants us to consider, not only to those around us, but also to the very essence of ourselves? Read more

'The Interior Circuit: A Mexico City Chronicle'

Francisco Goldman's "The Interior Circuit: A Mexico City Chronicle" is so sneakily brilliant, it's hard to put into words. Part travelogue, part memoir, part reportage on Mexican politics and the scourge of narcoterrorism, it is also, in the finest sense, a book that creates its own form. "I could use words as my compass to map the route I'd taken," Goldman tells us late in the first part of this journal-like accounting, "and give it a narrative order, a sequence of incident and meaning, and rescue it from being something other than just circumstantial and ephemeral. The stories one tells about oneself aren’t necessarily true, of course, but I wanted this one to be as true as I could make it. This didn’t mean that it all had to be factually true, but I decided that this story needed to be factually true too." Read more

'Ecstatic Cahoots' and 'Paper Lantern'

Stuart Dybek's stories occupy a territory somewhere between Vladimir Nabokov and Nelson Algren — beguiled by the play of language, but also gritty and specific, fundamentally urban at their core. And yet, to read him is to be reminded of the resonance of small moments, the connections that arise and dissipate with the passing power of a thought. "[T]he story might at first be no more than a scent," Dybek observes in "Fiction": "a measure of the time spent folded in a cedar drawer that's detectable on a silk camisole." What he's getting at is the power of inference, the longing implied, and inspired, by a gesture or a phrase. "Fiction" comes late in "Ecstatic Cahoots: Fifty Short Stories." It's a superlative collection and its appearance would be notable even if it weren't accompanied by a companion volume, "Paper Lantern: Love Stories," which has been published simultaneously. Read more

'My Struggle'

Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard’s “My Struggle” is the buzz book of the moment — or more accurately a certain kind of buzz book, for a certain kind of audience. It is also a provocation, sharing its title with one of the most notorious works of the 20th century (Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”) while seeking to break down everything we thought we knew about personal narrative. And yet, deep in the second book of this six-volume, 3,600-page autobiographical project, Knausgaard offers us an unexpected key. “A life is simple to understand,” he explains, “the elements that determine it are few. In mine there were two. My father and the fact that I had never belonged anywhere.” There you have it, “My Struggle” in a nutshell ... although how to get at this simplicity is something else again. Self-absorbed, expansive, constantly doubling back on itself, “My Struggle” is an attempt to make an epic of the banal facts of the author’s existence. This is what makes “My Struggle” so brilliant: the understanding that, in recalling, or re-creating, our history, we give it a meaning it would not otherwise possess. Read more

'Elegy for a Dead World'

You can battle an Orc king. You can steal a car or maybe a boat. You can even rescue the princess in your plumber overalls. Actions and story arcs are plentiful in most games, but the underlying narrative, malleable it may be, is almost always pre-written. "Elegy for a Dead World" puts forth a different theory. Maybe you, the player, can write the story. Maybe a blank page can be turned into a game. Part writing exercise, part teaching tool and part sci-fi story generator, "Elegy for a Dead World" aims to turn players into budding Arthur C. Clarkes — or at least amateur poets. It's a high-minded goal, one reflective of the game's haughty title, and meeting it can be more daunting than facing off against a barrel-throwing ape. Here, the only enemy is a blinking cursor, or a case of writer's block. Read more

'Lost Constellation'

Confession: I like cats more than I like video games. The upcoming “Night in the Woods” combines these passions, and a recently released mini-game from its developers asks the unanswerable questions every cat herder has pondered: What do cats think of when they daydream? Answer: It’s certainly not mice or canned tuna. Infinite Fall and Finji’s “Lost Constellation” doesn’t shy away from big topics; it tackles religion, the loss of a loved one and tricks of the mind with deft touches of humor and light flourishes of mysticism. Here domesticated animals grapple with the same existential issues that keep us up at night. Read more

'Super Smash Bros.'

My relationship with Nintendo is maybe not as healthy as it should be. This realization comes to me as the year draws to a close, when one is pressed to discuss the most innovative or thoughtful interactive experiences of the year. Games such as the haunting "The Vanishing of Ethan Carter" or the whimsically lonely "Broken Age: Act 1" are some that immediately spring to mind. These are titles that made the same sort of lasting impression as a TV season of "Orphan Black" or a movie screening of "Big Hero 6," which was full of unexpected considerations on loss. Like the getting-by struggles at the heart of hip-hop act Run the Jewels, these are all examples of pop culture with layers, where revisiting is encouraged. Yet there is one Wii U game in heavy rotation that I didn't expect to be there. That game is "Super Smash Bros.," a button-smashing, jump-and-sock 'em extravaganza of punching, kicking and crazy moves with nonsense titles such as the "Peach blossom" and "konga beat." There are fights at haunted mansions, fights in suburban streets and fights around space lava. Read more

'Never Alone'

Alan Gershenfeld was already skeptical that this January 2012 trip to Alaska would yield a video game. The blizzard wasn't helping. But his business partner, Michael Angst, was insistent. "[He] said, 'We have to go! I've been to 49 states but not Alaska.'" For the Alaskans awaiting Gershenfeld's arrival, this two-day business adventure carried much more weight than whether a video game executive completed a travel bucket list. The Cook Inlet Tribal Council, an Anchorage-based nonprofit supporting eight tribes in the region, wanted to launch a for-profit arm. The goal? Make money and be less dependent upon government assistance. The big plan? At one point it was funeral homes. This month it was a video game. Read more

'That Dragon, Cancer'

One of the first things you hear in Ryan Green's video game is a voice mail. Though it's not a horror game, the sound isn't just frightening; it's borderline bone-chilling. A woman leaving a message for her husband sounds exasperated. She's leaving the doctor's office and coming home without any answers. The couple's baby boy is vomiting. Maybe it's this? Maybe it's that? There is no diagnosis. And why is the child's head always cocked to one side? Everyone is thinking the worst, but no one is saying it. Read more

'Framed'

The long-standing Mad magazine comic strip "Spy vs. Spy" is occasionally like a puzzle — a short back-and-forth that asks the reader to piece together images to see which spy has the upper hand. If it were a film, the cuts would be fast and the swapping of one frame for another would change the entire outcome. Now imagine dragging the frames around the page. Instead of resulting in one's demise, the larger-than-life hammer or roped-together dynamite could set off a brief tale of revenge. Or we could call a truce. Perhaps we could rewrite the end of the narrative to reveal a twist. Maybe the two spies had been played as pawns in a larger scheme all along. If you get rid of the Looney Tunes-like imagery and turn all that into a game, the result would feel something like "Framed." Read more

'A Bird Story'

There are first loves, which are important, yes, and then there are first pets. "A Bird Story" documents the mysterious emotional grip of the latter, tracing the connection between a humble winged critter and the little boy who dreams of joining his pal in flight. The power of imagination as well as a little ingenuity when it comes to crafting the perfect larger-than-life paper airplane goes a long way toward forging the relationship in this heartwarming tale, one that just so happens to be completely wordless and textless. Read more

'The Vanishing of Ethan Carter'

“The Vanishing of Ethan Carter” is a ghost story. Or maybe it’s a game about the mind’s powerful ability to fool itself. In both execution and play, however, it’s a tale about what’s missing. It’s a search for a boy, one whose family appears to have a mysterious and murderous history, and it unravels with a patience and exploratory nature that will challenge players and test the narrative conventions of gaming. With traces of pulpish sci-fi and hints of hard-boiled noir, “The Vanishing of Ethan Carter” makes clever use of the interactive medium. There is no designated order to the game; its puzzles are random and need to be stumbled upon. Players are set free, dropped in a gorgeous, photorealistic world and told essentially nothing. Read more

'Sunset Overdrive'

The ridiculousness in “Sunset Overdrive” borders on anarchic. There are rules, like any game, but long before players discover a gun that fires a stuffed kitten — a plushy that’s used to send a robotic dog on a killing spree — “Sunset Overdrive” manages to excitedly toy with many of them. None of it should work. The look is cartoonishly crass (imagine a mash-up of every West Coast city, remade in the blunt architecture style of a rock festival), the music out of date (see the Warped Tour, circa 1995), the plot simple (humans consume too many energy drinks and turn into giant monsters) and the sociopolitical targets obvious (as for those sugary drink peddlers, yes, they’re probably insidious, but we learned that from Mike Judge’s “Idiocracy”). There are also guns. Lots and lots of guns. Read more

'Fantasia: Music Evolved'

Walt Disney's 1940 film "Fantasia" opens with a series of bold, inventive proclamations. Audiences are welcomed to a "new form of entertainment," one in which the animation isn't afraid to veer toward the abstract and the music isn't concerned with what's on the charts. But as the British narrator early in the new "Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved" says, "Let's see how you handle something a little more contemporary." Words that sent a shiver down the spine of this stubborn "Fantasia" loyalist. Indeed, the first voice we hear in "Fantasia: Music Evolved," a just-released interactive interpretation of the experimental but venerable brand, is that of Lady Gaga. This is dangerous territory. Beethoven is timeless, but "Applause" is already dated, its glittery melodic tendrils firmly gripping 2013. Of course, those who own the Xbox 360 and the Xbox One are the target market here, not the millions of Americans priced out of symphony halls. Read more

'Alien: Isolation'

Though she's long considered one of the great cinematic heroes, Ellen Ripley has generally been a forgettable one when it comes to video games. Steely in her beliefs yet unafraid to show emotion and a friend to felines, the character made famous by Sigourney Weaver in the "Alien" films possesses as much thoughtfulness as action-star bullheadedness. It's a combustible cocktail of very human emotional traits that until recently were not easily translated into action video games. But is it any wonder the video game industry has struggled to turn "Alien," especially the 1979 sci-fi horror film of the same name from Ridley Scott, into a notable game? After all, it's a story in which firing a gun at the enemy, one that bleeds corrosive acid, is essentially suicide. So guns, the favored weapon for nearly all interactive heroes, are largely useless. "Alien: Isolation" is an attempt to strip things back, the video game equivalent of a venerable band returning to the basics. Read more

'Smarter Than You'

The very name of the game is like a glove slapped across the face. "Smarter Than You," released this week for Apple's mobile devices, is a taunt and a challenge. Bold words for a game that, on the surface, is essentially a virtual match of rock-paper-scissors. And yet "Smarter Than You," a free game with a minimalistic presentation that asks little of its players, manages to carve its way into a rather complex psychological head space. That's because it's partly a game about the little ways in which we casually lie — to strangers, friends and loved ones. So maybe, depending on your level of cynicism, "Smarter Than You" is also a game about the ways in which we communicate. "You don't have to tell the truth," the game tells us in its opening tutorial, spelling out what is already tacitly understood in any engagement of one-upsmanship. For what it's worth, "lie" may be too harsh a word. "Smarter Than You" is a game of bluffing, of tentatively revealing half-truths or nonsense to stay one step ahead of our sparring partners. Note: The ultra-competitive may need to be warned before playing with friends. Read more

Moschino

Hometown hero Jeremy Scott has opened the first Moschino store in Los Angeles, with all the playful “Drink Moschino” cola can window displays, Barbie-pink shrunken biker jackets and chain-link-trimmed baseball caps you’d expect from fashion’s reigning king of pop. The designer, who took over as creative director of Italian fashion brand Moschino in October 2013 and now splits his time between his L.A. base and Milan, arrived stateside on Sunday to open the 3,500-square-foot boutique, located in a former gallery space on Beverly Boulevard in West Hollywood. Read more

Moschino, 8933 Beverly Blvd., West Hollywood

Burberry in Beverly Hills

Burberry has taken Beverly Hills by storm, just in time for the holidays. In quick order, the label opened its first Rodeo Drive flagship, accepted a Rodeo Drive Walk of Style Award and launched an L.A. version of its Art of the Trench campaign. It's all part of the vision of Christopher Bailey, who joined the brand in 2001, became creative director in 2004 and raised eyebrows when CEO was added to his title this year. Under Bailey, the nearly 160-year-old British heritage outfit known for trusty trench coats has been reinvigorated as a 21st century trendsetter and innovator. And the distinctive beige Burberry check, which fell out of favor in the early 2000s after it was overexposed and counterfeited, has been rediscovered by a new generation of celebs — Harry Styles, Olivia Palermo and Sarah Jessica Parker among them — who are bundling up this winter in monogrammed check scarves and blanket ponchos. The four-story Rodeo Drive boutique features the full range of the label's products for men and women, including its Prorsum, London and Brit collections, handbags and accessories, as well as a dedicated alcove for Burberry Beauty. There's a VIP floor to cater to celebs, with a wraparound rooftop terrace that has views of the Hollywood sign and Griffith Park. Read more

Burberry, 301 North Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills

Simone Rocha

London designer darling Simone Rocha is following her New Establishment British Fashion Award win this week with a denim capsule for J Brand now available online. Rocha is the daughter of the well-established, Dublin, Ireland-based designer John Rocha, who was until recently a mainstay on the runways in London. She launched her namesake collection at London Fashion Week in 2011, after graduating from fashion school Central Saint Martins. Since then, she's been racking up young designer awards across the globe and gaining a steady following for her darkly feminine, goofy-glam, ruffled and sparkly designs, which sell at Colette, Dover Street Market and Net-a-Porter, among other places. Read more

'Tory Burch: In Color'

Tory Burch has created an American brand that's both aspirational and attainable, and she's become a billionaire in the process. In the 10 years since she started her business, she's opened stores around the world, most recently in Shanghai, launched a fragrance, dressed tastemakers in the White House, in Hollywood and beyond and formed the Tory Burch Foundation to support female entrepreneurship. And she's done it all by telling a story through color. A new book, "Tory Burch: In Color" (Abrams), brings readers into her world through 11 color-themed sections. Read more

Gucci's, Beverly Hills

On a recent afternoon at Gucci's newly remodeled Rodeo Drive flagship, creative director Frida Giannini is looking very at home in L.A. She's wearing a colorful patchwork print silk blouse from the label's forthcoming spring collection, a pair of perfectly faded Gucci boyfriend jeans and metallic platform sandals that hint at her love of all things David Bowie and 1970s. This is the look of Giannini's Gucci now: everyday luxe. "Evening gowns are an incredible market for us," she says in the store's lush new third-floor VIP suite, built for celebrity dressing, with crystal-embroidered gala gowns hanging nearby. "But for me, it's important to have special items in each collection that you can keep in your closet for years. I call them essentials, but they are still objects of desire." Under construction for two years, the remodeled boutique at 347 Rodeo Drive announces itself in gold and crystal, with a sparkling façade. Read more

Gucci's, 347 Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills

Barneys New York in Beverly Hills

Just in time for its 20th anniversary, celebrated on Oct. 15, Barneys New York in Beverly Hills has had a face-lift. The main floor, cosmetics floor and men's fifth floor have all been redesigned, and the store includes the first Freds restaurant on the West Coast, creating a new see-and-be-seen scene in Beverly Hills, complete with terrace tables with views of the Hollywood sign. Shoppers will notice the changes immediately. The store's curving Regency-style staircase remains the centerpiece, except now that curving motif is being carried throughout the design of the store and its fixtures, which have a soft but modern style that might be described as organic minimalism. Read more

Barneys Beverly Hills, 9570 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills

'Hollywood Costume'

The new "Hollywood Costume" exhibition at the May Co. building — future home of the Academy Museum of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, opening in 2017 — is on view through March 2 and features more than 150 costumes from the golden era to the present, including pieces from "American Hustle," "The Wolf of Wall Street" and "The Great Gatsby," and the most famous shoes of all time, Dorothy's ruby-red slippers. The expansive show includes a soaring soundtrack composed especially for it by Julian Scott, and multimedia displays highlighting how costume designers work with directors and actors. Read more

The Wilshire May Company Building, 6067 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles

Elyse Walker's Online Boutique

For 15 years, Elyse Walker's Pacific Palisades boutique has been the destination for high-end designer fashion in a neighborhood where residents would rather cross the Gobi Desert than the 405. But it's what Walker has been doing outside the store, using technology to create an omni-channel experience, that's taking the tradition of the plugged-in L.A. retailer-to-the-stars into the future. Walker can sell a pair of $2,300 Saint Laurent boots without ever having to put them on the floor, just by sending a text message to a well-heeled client. She can blow out $4,600 Stella McCartney lace jumpsuits before they've even been unpacked from the box by posting a runway photo to her Instagram account with the hashtag #Everydayisarunway. Launched two years ago, her e-commerce site, ForwardByElyseWalker.com, is poised to hit $100 million in sales this year. Read more

Elyse Walker, 15306 Antioch St, Pacific Palisades

New York Fashion Week: Michael Kors

If there is one phrase that sums up the spring season at New York Fashion Week, Michael Kors has it: optimistic chic. His collection brought many of the week's trends together, including 1950s-inspired circle skirts and crop tops: garden florals and embroideries; natural hues; gingham checks; spare, simple accessories and shoes made for walking. Read more

The Emmys: The Best of the Red Carpet Looks

The Emmys' red carpet was one of the best displays of fashion and style in recent Hollywood history. The looks were modern and not overwhelming. These women wore the clothes; the clothes didn't wear them. Red was the hot color and the best red dresses had unusual details -- whimsical red crystal butterflies at the neckline of Claire Danes' Givenchy stunner, for example, and sexy burgundy patent leather strap details on Julia Louis-Dreyfus' raspberry red Carolina Herrera gown. Read more

Kendall Conrad

Accessories designer Kendall Conrad's face brightens on a recent morning in her sun-filled Abbot Kinney boutique as she flips through pages of playful owl sketches, images of black-and-white ceramic vessels with Minotaur faces and the color blue, Picasso blue. She's turned to the books "Picasso: The Mediterranean Years" and "Picasso and Francoise Gilot: Paris-Vallauris, 1943-1953" to explain the arty inspiration for her spring Vallauris collection, which may be her best yet. Read more

Kendall Conrad, 1121 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Bldg. 3, Venice

Figue

This summer, the Abbot Kinney shopping scene is becoming even more boho-chic. Figue, the New York-based gypset-lifestyle collection founded in 2012 by fashion vet Stephanie von Watzdorf, has opened a pop-up shop on the famed retail stretch in Venice. The store features the spring/summer collection, including folkloric beaded tuxedo shirts, ikat-print tunic dresses and fringed bags, as well as limited-edition accessories sourced from the designer's travels, such as hand-embroidered kaftans and one-of-a-kind, hand-embellished military jackets. Von Watzdorf designed the 1,300-square-foot space herself, with Moorish arches, filigree lanterns, a hammock and Berber blankets that make you want to stay a while. Read more

Figue, 1301 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice